objective – Success in Simulation and Schedulinghttps://www.simio.com/blog
Idea exchange on how to make simulation and scheduling projects more successful.Mon, 19 May 2008 22:00:25 +0000en-US
hourly
1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.2.3https://www.simio.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/cropped-logo-square-schneider-32x32.pngobjective – Success in Simulation and Schedulinghttps://www.simio.com/blog
3232Model Thishttps://www.simio.com/blog/2008/05/19/model-this/
https://www.simio.com/blog/2008/05/19/model-this/#commentsMon, 19 May 2008 22:00:25 +0000https://www.simio.com/blog/2008/05/19/model-this/Continue reading →]]>When I first started modeling, my boss came to me and said “Model this…” and then proceeded to describe an area of the plant that he thought “might benefit from having a model”. Unfortunately there were no specific objectives beyond that.

To me, a new simulationist, that sounded like an ideal project. Nothing to prove… Nothing specific to evaluate… No one waiting on specific results (because none were asked for)… It even sounded like a good opportunity to learn how to model. But it was not.

“Model this” generally results in a useless project. A waste of time. Without clients or clear objectives, I could not know what to model. Without clear objectives, I had little motivation to learn how to model tricky situations; I instead tended to bypass them to work on aspects more fun or interesting. In fact, for the same reason I often did not even recognize modeling challenges, so I never learned to deal with them.

Moreover, when it was all done, what did I have to show for my time? Perhaps a cool-looking animation. It probably did not have many aspects of reality to it. Reality is driven by close interaction with the stakeholders – oops, I did not have any of them. Why should anyone waste his or her time sharing domain knowledge with me, when I was basically just modeling for fun?

And worse, after I “finished” the model, I was overconfident of my modeling skills – after all, I modeled everything I set out to model, right? Of course I was never forced to really verify and validate against the real system, so I never really had any idea how good the model really was.

Avoid “model this”. Always push for clear project objectives. More on that next time.